[Jacques Lolive]

Hello I will buy a Chord Qutest in France with a voltage of 230v and I would like to use it then in Brazil with a voltage of 110 v. Do you know if the Qutest power supply is suitable for both voltages? If not, where can I buy a power supply for 110v?
Thank's a lot for the answer

 

[kerisabe]

Hello I will buy a Chord Qutest in France with a voltage of 230v and I would like to use it then in Brazil with a voltage of 110 v. Do you know if the Qutest power supply is suitable for both voltages? If not, where can I buy a power supply for 110v?
Thank's a lot for the answer

The supply that comes with the qutest will work, it also comes with plug adaptors.

 

[GreenBow]

OK I've had a reply from Chord Electronics
"
Dear Sir, thanks for your inquiry.
With all our products, the maximium sample rate via optical is 24/96 as this is all the connection is ratified for. The other connections can handle 192kHz and greater though.
All the best"
Despite the evidence that 192kHz is being supported by other users of Head-Fi and contrary to the Qutest manual and to Chord's own website.

Since your reply said all Chord products, I went looking over the website:

Their website actually says up to 24bit 96KHz for Hugo 2. However I have never had any problem running 192KHz on my Hugo 2.
Website says 24bit 192KHz for the Mojo.
While the website says nothing on the TT2, but the manual says 192KHz on the optical input. (Manual for the previous version TT states 192KHz on optical too.)

This is all very confusing. I was solidly under the impression that the Hugo 2 and TT2 run 192KHz optical. I was under the impression that all Chord DACs run 192KHz on the optical.

I buy Chord DACS being under the impression they ran 192KHz on optical. I buy 192KHz music when I can, so I would want DACs to run that as the minimum. That's how I thought it was and never gave it a second thought.


(I don't mean to cause trouble. However the website saying a product runs up to 96KHz, and the manual saying 192KHz. That has to be illegal; it's got to be a mistake though. Someone should advise them to get that straight before it causes trouble. Although I doubt it will.

Not that I am going to say anything because my DACS all run blue, so I am assuming they are running at 192KHz when I use optical. I almost always use USB though. Me showing the Qutest running optical was time consuming. Getting the cable, plugging it in, finding 192KHz music, swapping settings over on my PC (a few times), photographing, transferring photos to PC. Writing long post.)

192/24 via optical plays nicely, blue light confirms this.

Nice to see. I was hoping someone else would confirm Qutest playing 192KHz. Since Chord are saying the Qutest runs at 96KHz, folk might have thought I was pulling a trick. What with me having posted blue on my optical input showing Qutest running 192KHz.

Your camera has done the same as mine. Shows most of the blue light as white, with just a bit of blue around it. Nice that your DAP is showing the file type information.

I believe it should be fine as long as you install the Chord native Windows driver. I don't remember any lag with the Mojo. If there were audio/video sync issues, it would be brought on this thread as Youtube is mission-critical.

I took a quick look at the AudioQuest site, did you set your Dragonfly to 'exclusive mode'?

https://www.audioquest.com/page/aq-digitalupdates.html

I didn't see any native Windows driver download for Dragonfly.

The driver does not play any part in any connection other than USB. Apparent Mac computers don't need any driver at all.

 

[GreenBow]

Reflections are random, also the polish accuracy of the connector surface plays a role. Im just saying that 192khz is the edge of capabillity for a single strand cable. I guess your Qutest could be processing lost/double bit errors that you won't hear easily but just dont drop out.

I believed you. I believed about reflections in cables. I wondered by your reply if you thought I didn't, because I said my cheap cable worked at 192KHz.

When I bought that cable it was not meant for anything fancy, and I didn't own any 192KHz music. I had a set of Q Acoustics BT3, which I fed by Mojo through RCA inputs. However the BT3 have a DAC in them. I bought the optical cable just to have a listen to the BT3 DAC. I never got to hear it before then, as I had no other way to connect digitally to the BT3.

I think it was just lucky that the cheap cable worked at 192KHz. Although like someone else said, cheap cables do sometimes. I would prefer a quality cable though if I was going to run high res music over optical all the time. I always use USB though for convenience.

 

[Jacques Lolive]

The supply that comes with the qutest will work, it also comes with plug adaptors.

Thank's for the reply. So th supply work with both voltage. It's a good new !

 

[blueninjasix]

Since your reply said all Chord products, I went looking over the website:

Their website actually says up to 24bit 96KHz for Hugo 2. However I have never had any problem running 192KHz on my Hugo 2.
Website says 24bit 192KHz for the Mojo.
While the website says nothing on the TT2, but the manual says 192KHz on the optical input. (Manual for the previous version TT states 192KHz on optical too.)

This is all very confusing. I was solidly under the impression that the Hugo 2 and TT2 run 192KHz optical. I was under the impression that all Chord DACs run 192KHz on the optical.

I buy Chord DACS being under the impression they ran 192KHz on optical. I buy 192KHz music when I can, so I would want DACs to run that as the minimum. That's how I thought it was and never gave it a second thought.


(I don't mean to cause trouble. However the website saying a product runs up to 96KHz, and the manual saying 192KHz. That has to be illegal; it's got to be a mistake though. Someone should advise them to get that straight before it causes trouble. Although I doubt it will.

Not that I am going to say anything because my DACS all run blue, so I am assuming they are running at 192KHz when I use optical. I almost always use USB though. Me showing the Qutest running optical was time consuming. Getting the cable, plugging it in, finding 192KHz music, swapping settings over on my PC (a few times), photographing, transferring photos to PC. Writing long post.)





Nice to see. I was hoping someone else would confirm Qutest playing 192KHz. Since Chord are saying the Qutest runs at 96KHz, folk might have thought I was pulling a trick. What with me having posted blue on my optical input showing Qutest running 192KHz.

Your camera has done the same as mine. Shows most of the blue light as white, with just a bit of blue around it. Nice that your DAP is showing the file type information.





The driver does not play any part in any connection other than USB. Apparent Mac computers don't need any driver at all.

Thanks for this long and detailed reply. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who is confused. I do need clarification from Chord because when I have tried to return a (possibly) faulty optical cable to QED, the first question they ask is if I'm sure that the equipment at either end is capable of 192kHz and unfortunately, at the moment, I cannot give them an answer about my Qutest.

 

[Victorr]

Thanks for this long and detailed reply. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who is confused. I do need clarification from Chord because when I have tried to return a (possibly) faulty optical cable to QED, the first question they ask is if I'm sure that the equipment at either end is capable of 192kHz and unfortunately, at the moment, I cannot give them an answer about my Qutest.

Manufacturers often specify a parameter for the optical connection 24-96, so as not to engage in controversy with cable manufacturers. I have long had a similar problem (as I wrote above) with another DAC. I decided to just use a cheap cable and forgot about expensive branded cables. I advise you to do the same.

 

[Rob Watts]

The Qutest is indeed capable of running at 192 kHz, so long as the source and the fibre is capable of doing this; in the past, Toshiba made the rx. and tx., and even with crappy plastic 192 would work well. But Toshiba have stopped making these devices; the current alternatives, although rated at 192 kHz, are not as good as before; so many manufacturers are no longer claiming that optical will work at 192 kHz. Indeed, AP test equipment no longer claim that 192 kHz works on optical.

So Qutest will work at 192, but only if the partnering gear is up to the task...

 

[GreenBow]

That sounds like the definitive answer to me.

 

[miketlse]

That sounds like the definitive answer to me.

Matt replied to me and clarified the situation as well.

"All our DACs are capable of 24/192KHz over optical. However the spec and design of spdif optical means at this rate it is right on the edge of working. This means you need to keep the optical cable as short as possible, use glass fibre if possible and then the fibre in the plugs has to be perfectly aligned so that there is no mismatch when plugged into the receiver in the DAC. So there are lots of factors that can cause optical to fail at 24/192KHz.
Added to this around 2 years ago Sony in particular (but also the optical component manufacturers) announced that they would stop support of 24/192KHz via optical and there was a recommendation that the spec was reduced to 24/96KHz for all consumer products to help reduce the confusion and the number of customer support cases.
This means that for us we had no guarantee that the source would actually work correctly at 24/192KHz, whether the optical cable was capable of passing the signal up to 24/192KHz, and then finally on top of that any cable mismatch issue would also cause problems.

So we have decided to simplify things and start to change the spec of all our products to only guarantee operation at 24/96KHz to avoid any confusion or upset when higher rates do not work correctly. So yes there is a difference between ratified which means we can guarantee operation, and technically capable of where it can do it if the correct conditions are met."

 

[blueninjasix]

Matt replied to me and clarified the situation as well.

"All our DACs are capable of 24/192KHz over optical. However the spec and design of spdif optical means at this rate it is right on the edge of working. This means you need to keep the optical cable as short as possible, use glass fibre if possible and then the fibre in the plugs has to be perfectly aligned so that there is no mismatch when plugged into the receiver in the DAC. So there are lots of factors that can cause optical to fail at 24/192KHz.
Added to this around 2 years ago Sony in particular (but also the optical component manufacturers) announced that they would stop support of 24/192KHz via optical and there was a recommendation that the spec was reduced to 24/96KHz for all consumer products to help reduce the confusion and the number of customer support cases.
This means that for us we had no guarantee that the source would actually work correctly at 24/192KHz, whether the optical cable was capable of passing the signal up to 24/192KHz, and then finally on top of that any cable mismatch issue would also cause problems.

So we have decided to simplify things and start to change the spec of all our products to only guarantee operation at 24/96KHz to avoid any confusion or upset when higher rates do not work correctly. So yes there is a difference between ratified which means we can guarantee operation, and technically capable of where it can do it if the correct conditions are met."

Thank you and to all others in this thread who have helped to clarify this matter. I also received confirmation from Ed at Chord along similar lines. As ever I am extremely impressed with the access we have to Rob Watts, to Chord Electronics and their excellent customer service.

 

[kumar402]

OK I've had a reply from Chord Electronics
"
Dear Sir, thanks for your inquiry.
With all our products, the maximium sample rate via optical is 24/96 as this is all the connection is ratified for. The other connections can handle 192kHz and greater though.
All the best"
Despite the evidence that 192kHz is being supported by other users of Head-Fi and contrary to the Qutest manual and to Chord's own website.

Well I definitely streamed 24/192 from Qobuz with Amazon basics optical cable from my MacBook pro2013

 

[dac64]

I have compared the stock with poweradd 2 power bank, no different to me.

Till now,almost a year, still using the stock.

Maybe I will try 485w power banks for both the Qutest and HMS one of these days.

I have battery powered the HMS and Qutest, and I didn't like the sound.

It sounded unnatural, maybe these china-made generated huge distortions.

On the contrary, playing with the resonoses of the equipment bringing biggest impacts to the sounds!

The changes to the sound were more prominent after the addition of the HMS!

 

[nwavesailor]

Just got my Qutest today and it is quite impressive! I am using it with a HeadAmp GS-X Mini and Cavalli Liquid Platinum and primarily Empy hp as well as some E2.

Is the OEM USB cable a USB A to USB B? Anything special I should be looking for in a shorter version of this cable?

 

[Gibson59]

Not that anyone needs to spend this much on an optical cable, but I can confirm that I’ve been successfully using an Audioquest Carbon optical cable to stream 24/192 via Qobuz/Roon from my Mac Mini for some time now without any issues. Sounds fantastic!